Extradition: Rule of Specialty Issue May Arise in Saxena Thai Extradition

The Rule of Specialty generally protects an accused, from extradition on one charge, but prosecution for others. However, in the age of "superseding indictments" and complex fraud investigations, this is a challenging area of international extradition law.

According to the Thai press, an attorney for accused bank embezzler Rakesh Saxena, who was just recently returned from Canada to Thailand, claim that if additional charges are added for prosecution, this would be in violation of the extradition process. The Nation. One question is whether Saxena would have standing in the Thai court to complain or would the complaint have to come from the Canadian Courts?

"The lawyer, who asked to remain anonymous, dismissed a comment by a public prosecutor, who was behind the successful extradition of Saxena, that prosecutors would file 20 more cases against him by notifying the Canadian government first as they are offences of a similar nature.
The lawyer threatened that Saxena would file complaints in a Thai court and with the Canadian government if he were to face legal action in other cases. He said Thai prosecutors could not seek permission from Canada to press other charges against Saxena.

He said the right of the suspect is protected by the treaty that Siam ratified with the United Kingdom (Canada was a part of the British Empire at the time). He must not be pressed with charges other than what is stated in the request for his extradition. "